This paper focuses on the discussions around immigrants in the two councils that administered this larger administrative unit, the county of Vidin in the northwest corner of modern-day Bulgaria, where borders of Romania and Serbia meet along the Danube. Fertile soil and moderate climate made these lands suitable for agriculture and led to high levels of rural settlements, where diverse ethnic groups lived together and interacted with each other. The County was predominantly non-Muslim in the 1860s and 70s—with the exception of the town of Vidin where Muslim population tended to be slightly over the half. Following the Ottoman provincial regulation in 1864, the administrative council, and the council of appeals and crime, became central to the local political economy and the judicial affairs. I contend that these councils and their associated subordinate offices were not simply provincial extensions of the Tanzimat state; instead, they served as domains for a variety of politics—of ethnicity, confession, class, and the like. Within this framework, an analysis of how a politically charged topic, such as immigration, is discussed within this sphere can be informative about the general perceptions of influential agents at the local level. In the nineteenth century, waves of refugees flooded the region. Most of them were Tatars and Circassians coming from Russia; while another wave came to Vidin from Serbia. Their settlement in the northwestern borders of the Ottoman Empire bolstered the Muslim population. Yet another group that migrated to Vidin in 1870s was Christian Vlachs who used to live in the Vidin area but crossed the Danube migrating to Wallachia earlier in 1860 and returning “home” a decade later. Regardless of their faith, refugees had to face difficult conditions in the course of their migration, and their settlement meant severe financial burden at the imperial and local level at a time when issues such as property ownership, citizenship, universal conscription, and tax reforms were debated throughout the empire. The local government gave refugees farmland, oxen, regular allowances, tax exemptions; furthermore, built houses, schools, and mosques for them. The conjunction of Ottoman modernization with such costly resettlements meant increased provincial discussions around “nativeness,” “Ottoman-ness” and “coexistence” in Vidin during this period. Therefore, immigrants and their conceptualization in provincial correspondence provides a good insight on local dimensions of nineteenth century Ottoman transformation. This paper will do that by analyzing case studies from the registers of the councils mentioned above.